by Willy Franzen on March 1, 2010
After a week of cold weather in Florida, I’m headed back to Chicago. Since I wanted to enjoy the last night of my vacation, I decided that I’d try to get this post to you from 31,000 feet. I’m flying on AirTran (maybe we’ll look at their jobs another time), and all of their flights offer Gogo Inflight Wi-Fi, which is a service provided by Itasca, IL based AirCell (I used this promotion to get a free access coupon code). The business of Internet Service Providers was a big one in the 90s, but as we’ve become more accustomed to broadband, we’ve mostly started using major telecom companies to feed our Internet addictions. Now, the business opportunities are all about providing Internet access in locations with captive audiences—hotels, convention centers, airports, and now airplanes, although 3G card providers are offering some fierce competition. Luckily for Aircell, that’s not an option in the air, which means that, for now, Gogo has a dominant market position with their because of their FCC sanctioned rights to be the “exclusive provider of Wi-Fi communications to airlines, business aviation, military, government, and specialty aircraft across North America.”
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by Willy Franzen on February 25, 2010
If I ever make a ridiculous amount of money, the first thing that I’m going to do is buy a private jet—or at least a share in one. It seems like the ultimate way to travel. I’ve been on private planes before, but they had propellers and I was sitting next to or right behind the pilot (not nearly as classy). NetJets is a company that allows wealthy individuals and businesses to buy shares in private jets (since who really needs an entire jet to himself or herself?). They also have a subscription service called MarquisJet that lets you get a guaranteed number of hours of private jet use. It may not make private air travel affordable or cost effective, but it certainly puts it within reach for a lot more people. NetJets is by far the market leader, and they’re also a Berkshire Hathaway company. You know if Warren Buffett is investing in it, it has to be pretty good. NetJets is based in Columbus, OH, but quite obviously they operate all over the world.
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by Willy Franzen on February 11, 2010
You may have heard that NASA just had what was probably the final night launch of the space shuttle. I was lucky enough to see one a few years ago from a beach in Connecticut, although it didn’t look like much more than a bright light screaming through the night sky. Our space program is going through a lot of changes, and it seems that current funding for some future programs isn’t what the people at NASA were hoping for. Many fans of the space program are disappointed and pessimistic about the future of space exploration. Luckily, the past decade has led to the rise of private space companies that are taking up a lot of the slack when it comes to space flight. One of these companies is Hawthorne, CA based SpaceX, which was started by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk in 2002. Their focus is on building launch vehicles (mostly for satellites) that are not only more reliable, but also more affordable.
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by Willy Franzen on September 17, 2008
Periodically the news is riddled with stories about how the airlines are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Lately the focus of doom and gloom commentary has shifted to finance and insurance companies, but that doesn’t mean that the airlines are doing any better. There’s one company that is seemingly never in the conversation about struggling airlines – Southwest Airlines. If you’ve ever flown Southwest, you probably know why. They do things differently, and it makes flyers happy. Even though it seems like almost no one can succeed flying commercial routes, Southwest continues to impress. A One Day, One Internship reader tipped us off to some amazing internship opportunities at Southwest Airlines, so we thought that we’d look at their entry level jobs today too. Air travel isn’t going anywhere – it’s too important to us, so don’t write off an entire industry because the other losers can’t get their acts together.
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by Willy Franzen on July 30, 2008
“Just gas ‘em up and go!” is not the slogan that you’d expect to hear from an aerospace company, but that’s exactly how easy Masten Space Systems would like space travel to be. They’re a space startup, and they’re working on “developing a line of Vertical Takeoff and Vertical Landing (VTVL) launch vehicles,” although Masten is also know for offering to send your junk into space for a reasonable fee. Anyway, the whole idea behind what Masten Space Systems is doing is to create rocket vehicles that are reliable and reusable.
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by Willy Franzen on July 14, 2008
Sometimes we come across companies that aren’t currently offering entry-level jobs but are just too cool to not post about immediately. Aeros Corporation is one of those companies. The people at Aeros think that they’ve seen the future of air travel, and it’s chubby looking – at least compared to the jets we travel on today. Why is it chubby? Because blimp-like airships are the future. Aeros currently considers themselves “the world’s leading lighter-than-air, FAA-certified aircraft manufacturing company;” however, the future lies in the Aeroscraft (you need to click the link to check it out) which is not quite lighter than air. It is to be a “partially buoyant craft [with] a rigid hull structure” that can takeoff and land vertically, hover for extended periods of time, land practically anywhere in any weather, and will be extremely safe.
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by Willy Franzen on March 5, 2008
Typically young children are quite realistic about their career aspirations. They want to be firefighters, policemen, and teachers – professions that are in constant, steady demand. The more ambitious children might want a job as a doctor or veterinarian – still steady, but requiring a significant investment in education. It almost seems that as children we’re more realistic about life and careers than we are when we reach adulthood – except those kids who wanted to be astronauts. Since the beginning of the space program, there have only been 321 astronauts selected. Ever. There’s no surefire (or easy) way to become an astronaut – pilots, schoolteachers, doctors, scientist, and engineers have all been astronauts – but if selection as an astronaut is one of your life goals, you need to start preparing now. If you’re not ready for the commitment that it takes to be an astronaut, there are still plenty of entry-level jobs at NASA that will enable you to have a meaningful impact on the space program and NASA’s other endeavors.
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by Willy Franzen on February 5, 2008
BAE Systems is a global defence (they’re British) and aerospace company. They are quite huge, employing close to 100,000 people across the world, which means that they do an enormous amount of entry-level hiring. BAE Systems operates in a wide range of businesses – from land armaments to regional aircraft, from military air solutions to communications and electronic warfare systems. Their timeline of milestones will give you a better idea of the specifics of what they do. BAE Systems is probably not the best fit if you participated in a peace protest during college, but if you want to be in the industry that is pushing the bounds of engineering, it’s hard to overlook defense.
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by Willy Franzen on January 7, 2008
Well, we made it back home from vacation, but not without 3 hours of sitting on the runway due to Curacao’s random decision to close their airspace. Our pilot told us that we had to file a flight plan through Venezuelan airspace instead, and Venezuela’s being run by an unfriendly dictator didn’t make that the easiest – or fastest – process. By the time our new flight plan was filed, Curacao had lifted the flight ban and we finally went on our merry way. As painful as it was to be on the runway for 3 hours, jetBlue made it pretty bearable. They gave us drinks and snacks, although they did plead with us to take it easy, as they were running out and did not have catering services at this airport. Of course the request to back off the goodies created a run on the galley, but the flight attendants were still able to do a full snack and beverage service in-flight despite the excessive pre-flight demand. It was also nice to have the most legroom in coach and a little tv in the seatbacks in front of us. Another One Day, One Jobber flew a different airline out of the same airport at the same time and had a much more miserable experience – no food, no movies, and too much air conditioning with no blankets. jetBlue has been ranked by Conde Nast Traveler as America’s Best Domestic Airline for 6 straight years now, and their unparalleled devotion to customer service is the reason.
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by Willy Franzen on December 7, 2007
Not too long ago, the only unmanned aerial vehicles were planes flown by women. Now we live in a world where planes can fly themselves. We thought we were pretty high-tech when we set up a blog, coded our own template, and figured out how to optimize our site for Google; however, the companies that design, develop, and produce autonomous aircraft put us to absolute shame.
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